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Another big American retailer announced it was pulling out of downtown San Francisco.

Nordstrom blamed flagging foot traffic and the “dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market” when it announced it would not renew the lease on its massive retail location as well as its discount outlet in the heart of the city.

Numerous other brands have also said they will pull out of the area. In April, Whole Foods temporarily shut a flagship store that opened just last year, citing worker safety.

What’s happening in San Francisco has become a key storyline in a larger national narrative about crime and perceptions of crime.

It’s a storyline that CNN reporter Kyung Lah experienced back in March when she and a crew went to San Francisco to report on how crime has scrambled the city’s politics. Last November, voters in the majority-Asian American Sunset District replaced a progressive Chinese American incumbent for supervisor with a moderate White man, Joel Engardio.

“San Francisco, the most liberal place in America, is saying enough. We want safe streets. We want good schools,” Engardio told Lah during an interview at City Hall. “That should tell anyone – pay attention.”

Proving the point, the window of the car rented by Lah and her crew was being smashed and their bags grabbed as she conducted that interview. It happened in about four seconds, Lah said, and despite the fact that the CNN crew had hired professional security to watch their car. Watch her report.

Lah told me officers from the San Francisco Police Department ultimately recovered her emptied bags and passport.

For a better sense of what exactly is going on in one of the world’s great cities, I talked to Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist for Mission Local, an independent, nonprofit news site. Full disclosure: Joe and I went to college together in the Bay Area and were colleagues at The Daily Californian. Excerpts of our conversation are below.

WOLF: I’m out here on the East Coast. I see that businesses like Nordstrom and Whole Foods are leaving downtown San Francisco, and there is this theme that crime is driving them away. What’s your view?

ESKENAZI: There is crime in downtown San Francisco, but there always has been.

I think the notion that these businesses were driven out by crime is frankly dishonest. That’s always been a factor. But it wasn’t like Mid-Market (where the Nordstrom is located) was a serene place before the pandemic.

I think the Nordstrom people were very responsible in what they said. The letter that was sent to everybody was very upfront that there was decreased foot traffic. They weren’t making money.

It wasn’t good business for them anymore. And Nordstrom, in fact, closed their Stonestown Mall outlet in 2019, which is a mall more in the periphery of San Francisco.

So the problem here is that your big, high-end, mall-type retail is dying. It was already having lots of trouble before the pandemic and that kind of greased the skids. That’s a big problem for downtown San Francisco. It’s hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space that’s suddenly going to go vacant.

To say it was chased out by crime is a preferred narrative of people for their own worldview.

I just looked back and found an article that I wrote in 2014 about complaints that one out of every four police calls in that district was in or near the Westfield Mall. That was there before.

WOLF: There’s a tendency, if you’re looking from outside of San Francisco in, to try to connect dots between different stories. There’s the murder of a tech executive, the election of a more moderate city council, the recall of the district attorney there. There are reports about skyscrapers that are essentially vacant right now. There’s this perception that the inside of the city is being hollowed out.

ESKENAZI: That’s true, but that doesn’t have anything to do with crime. That has to do with the fact that the entire inside of the city was devoted to office space for businesses that are now going remote and cutting down.

People have different opinions on this, but I feel like it’s kind of asking a lot for the city to have 2020 hindsight. You can see where the city made itself vulnerable, devoting so much space to office space exclusively.

And in this case, tech companies were so flush that they alone could afford to buy up that office space, and in fact bought it up when it was still even conceptual office space. So like 100% of the vacancies were going to tech.

When tech workers dictated that they would rather be working from home or working a combination, that’s what happened. If you go to the Financial District now – it’s not nearly as bad as everyone would think. There are still people around. It’s just not crowded. And it hollows out very quickly once working hours are done.

But that’s always how it was. I think office vacancies speak for themselves.

We’re going to see how bad it really is when rents come down. A lot of the people who own those buildings are extremely leveraged and can’t afford to lower rents. So rents are still higher than in other cities nearby and in competing cities.

You’re not going to get new people with those rates. Sooner or later people are going to have to bite the bullet and decide they want the building to be largely full at a lower rate or largely empty at a higher rate.

And then we’re going to see if other types of businesses move in – the types of businesses San Francisco economically banished a long time ago.

WOLF: A separate issue than crime, but potentially related, is homelessness. We’ve written more about that, certainly, with regard to Los Angeles, but I wonder what it’s like from a perspective of running into a large number of people who are unhoused on the streets. Is that changing the perceptions in the city?

ESKENAZI: There have always been large numbers of unhoused people in San Francisco. The difference now is that with fewer people downtown, a higher percentage of people you see are visibly homeless.

What’s more, there are more overtly miserable people out than there used to be, for lack of a better word. You’re seeing more chaotic, horrific conditions.

You earlier mentioned crime, and in people’s minds, being uneasy about drug use in the streets or antisocial behavior is equated in their minds with crime. People feel uneasy, and that’s understandable.

But this feeling of uneasiness does not square with crime. If you take a step back, statistically, that’s the case. San Francisco has lots of overt misery, lots of overt drug use, lots of things that you wish you didn’t see and that the city should be dealing with in ways other than tossing people in jail or pushing them into neighboring counties.

San Francisco also has lots of property crime because there’s a great divergence of wealth and people steal things. But San Francisco’s violent crime rate is at a near historic low right now.

This dynamic was on full display when it was just assumed that tech mogul Bob Lee was stabbed to death by a homeless crazy, and it turns out that the man in custody is a fellow tech executive.

We have a big problem with the future of downtown and how it’s going to be productive and provide the tax revenue that this city depends upon. The departures of our big anchor businesses because it’s no longer profitable – that’s a big problem. It is separate and apart from the perception that it’s “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” here on the city streets, which just really isn’t true.

WOLF: Perception can lead to change, though, even if it isn’t specifically reality. How is the perception of the city as Thunderdome going to affect the politics there? People’s willingness to live there? If you describe a sense of uneasiness, even though that might not mean more crime, it sounds like a not-pleasant place to be.

ESKENAZI: I think it’s definitely going to have its effect on how things are done in San Francisco, but we’re going to have to see what that looks like.

I’d say that half-formed “solutions” meant to address something that isn’t statistically a problem are not going to have happy outcomes. You know, calling in the Highway Patrol and the National Guard to deal with our horrible drug addiction problem isn’t going to do much if it’s all for show, even if they get out on the streets and start collaring drug users and tossing them in jail.

We’re currently arresting narcotics criminals at about one-ninth of volume that district attorney (now Vice President) Kamala Harris presided over during prior police administrations. The tough parts of downtown were still tough back then. There was still a lot of overt drug use and misery.

The drugs are different now. The drugs are more dangerous now. But it would be very hard to just patrol and arrest your way out of this problem. It’s going to take more thorough, complete solutions.

I’m not really even seeing the willingness to have honest discussions about this, because the whole premise is being taken and grabbed and run with in a dishonest way.

WOLF: What am I missing?

ESKENAZI: I think that people are scared and people are uneasy and people are fed up.

But that’s different than saying OK, we’re just gonna hire more cops or OK, we’re going to just do something simple. These are complicated problems. And San Francisco can’t solve some of America’s problems.

One of the reasons in San Francisco you see people shooting drugs on the street is because in other parts of the country, those people can afford to be inside.

San Francisco has land-use issues and housing issues. Land use is a bit like sand; it gets into everything here. Every discussion ends up coming back to that, which is very unsatisfactory and makes it very hard to solve problems.

A (former New York City Mayor Rudy) Giuliani type situation of just like booting misery and overt antisocial behavior into the next county isn’t going to end up working here, because it would seem that other people have that idea elsewhere and they encourage people to come here.

WOLF: Let me flip the conversation around a little bit. You mentioned Vice President Harris. The current governor of California, Gavin Newsom, used to be the mayor of San Francisco. The city has an outsize influence in state and national politics. What is your view of how those two people’s careers will progress?

ESKENAZI: I think Kamala Harris will rise or fall based upon factors other than her performance as district attorney in San Francisco quite some time ago.

I think that it’s very hard to see some of Gavin Newsom’s moves here in California as other than politically based. Gavin Newsom does not seem to want to give fodder to (Florida Gov.) Ron DeSantis and, as a result, something that we know would work here in California, which is having supervised drug use centers – which have worked elsewhere in the country and worked elsewhere in the world – he vetoed that bill.

So we’re left with doing the same thing we’ve always done with regard to drug users and drug addicted people, which is not much – and the death toll is staggering.

I have a hard time seeing that as anything other than a politically based move. And he didn’t give Ron DeSantis something to tease him about, and people are dead on the streets. It’s very frustrating for those of us who live here.

WOLF: You’ve lived there pretty much your entire life. Has the city gotten better or worse in the last 40 some odd years?

ESKENAZI: It’s different. Some things are better, and some things are worse. People who tell you differently are seeing things through blinders, frankly. Full disclosure: You and I went to college together, and I grew up in the area. After Berkeley, I ended up moving full time to San Francisco 20 some odd years ago.

When I moved to San Francisco, Zach, there were well over 100 murders a year.

We’ve had as few as 41 murders, I think, two years ago (note: it was 2019). We’re on pace to have about 56, 55. So it’s very different. Violent crime is much lower now than it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

But property crime is off the hook. And overt misery is off the hook. And the budget of San Francisco has ballooned. So people are frustrated.

But simply saying things are worse or things are better strikes me as being reductive. Things are certainly more expensive.

The post What’s actually happening with crime in San Francisco? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Nicolas Dromard has worked his way up from ensemble to lead in two high-flying musicals: Wicked, in which he jumped from swing in the first national tour to an acclaimed run as Fiyero in the San Francisco production, and Mary Poppins, in which he progressed from swing in the original Broadway cast to a star turn as Mary’s chimney sweep pal Bert. As the show moves toward its March 3 closing date, Broadway.com chatted with the Canadian-born actor about his rising career and dream role.

How does it feel to come full circle with Mary Poppins and close out the Broadway run as Bert?
Amazing! It’s such an honor. At first we were shocked and sad that the show was closing, but six and a half years on Broadway is a great run. The show has an incredible message and makes audiences so happy. To be able to say that I was the final Bert on Broadway is a privilege.

What’s fun about playing Bert?
I think Bert is one of the best male roles on Broadway. He’s the narrator, he sets the mood, and he’s omnipresent—he’s constantly on stage dancing. In what other role can you tap dance on the ceiling?

Right! What’s that moment like?
It’s a roller coaster ride. “Step In Time” is my favorite part of show. There’s an adrenaline rush, and I get butterflies in my stomach each time. They clip me in, and I just go for it. It’s such an impressive stunt: I’m walking up a wall, and 30 seconds later I’m back down. It goes by so quickly! I wish it was longer.

You’ve danced on ceilings all over America. Does the New Amsterdam Theatre feel different?
The set is different on tour—the Banks’ home opens like a pop-up book, as opposed to the Broadway set, which is a three-story house! But coming back to New York was like riding a bike again.

What are your memories of playing Fiyero in the San Francisco company of Wicked?
It was so much fun. I left Poppins on Broadway in 2009 to join Wicked. Fiyero is a dream role because you get to kiss the blonde, you kiss the green, you swing on a rope and you take a bow! Bert is a beast of a role compared to Fiyero. It’s very physical.

You were also in the ensemble of The Boy From Oz a decade ago. Any good Hugh Jackman stories for us?
Just that he’s amazing and I want to work with him again. He’s so gung-ho; I’ve never seen someone work so hard. And his dressing room was always open—if your mom and dad came backstage after the show, he’d chat with them.

You were born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, and didn’t speak English until you were seven years old. Do you still speak fluent French?
Oh yeah, with my family. My grandmother doesn’t speak a word of English, but my parents do. They translated for the Canadian government.

At what age did you shed your French accent?
I still have a slight French accent, but I’m able to hide it. It still comes out when I’m tired or I’ve had a glass of wine or two.

You’ve played squeaky-clean roles for a stretch now. Any desire to be bad?
Of course! I’d love to be in Jersey Boys and play Tommy DeVito.    

The post What’s Up, Nicolas Dromard? Mary Poppins’ Remaining Bert on Kissing Depraved Witches and Dancing on the Ceiling | Broadway Buzz appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

By Ann Rostow–

What’s in a Name?

To what extent may a school require faculty and staff to use preferred names and pronouns for transgender students? Some might attack such a regulation based on “free speech,” but schools may police speech in many contexts, including antigay speech, racism, Nazi propaganda, and hate speech in general. When transgender kids are being denied access to bathrooms and healthcare itself, this feels like a lesser violation of rights, particularly if a school allows the anti-trans teacher to use surnames instead of first names. But if allowed to persist and expand, it infects the entire school community.

The practice of misnaming students veers into hate speech when it’s used to denigrate, insult, and single out trans kids for hostility from a person in power. That cannot be allowed in a healthy school system and that’s what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found earlier this year in the case of a “Christian” music teacher out of Indiana. The teacher, John Kluge, was fired in 2018 after his anti-trans behavior drew complaints and stigmatized the few transgender students in his classes. He sued on religious freedom grounds and lost both at the lower court and the appellate court levels. 

Subsequently last June, the unanimous Supreme Court ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employer must demonstrate a “substantial” hardship if they must violate the religious freedom of a staff member. The case, a Christian postal worker who refused to work on Sundays, was more or less your typical religious freedom case, and the standard of substantial hardship was only one step up from the unmodified “undue hardship” that previously governed the courts. After this ruling (in Groff v. DeJoy), the Seventh Circuit vacated its ruling in favor of the Indiana school, and sent John Kluge’s case back to lower court for a review that takes the latest High Court decision into account. Kluge has just asked the lower court for a summary judgment.

I hadn’t realized that Kluge was back in action until his latest court filing, but it’s disturbing to see the ripple effects of this High Court’s conservative jurisprudence, even in this instance where the Court ruled 9–0. I can’t help but feel that our side of the Court is picking its battles in the ongoing war over so-called “religious freedom,” deciding here perhaps that Mr. Groff’s desire to save Sunday for services was basically not a big deal and the post office should have accommodated his faith. Fine, okay. But will that mean that the federal court in Indiana and the Seventh Circuit will be obliged to give the green light to Kluge and his mean-spirited “religious” impulses? 

We all understand that devout Christians might want to spend Sundays doing some religious things, just as Jews won’t want to work on Friday night or Saturday and what have you. But since when does someone’s faith mandate public animosity and disrespect towards a group of people that they don’t like or understand? Surely it would be a substantial hardship for a school to tolerate such a person in a position of authority. I hope so at least.  

High Court Agenda Undetermined for Now

In other legal news, the ACLU has taken the plunge and asked the Supreme Court to decide whether a state may ban medical care for transgender youth, appealing a Tennessee law that was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. At the same time, the Sixth Circuit upheld a similar ban out of Kentucky, where activists also reportedly plan to petition the High Court.

We figured this issue would arrive at the Court’s doorstep sooner rather than later, as might the question of whether states can forbid transgender girls from playing on public school sports teams. It wasn’t necessarily clear that our side would be the first to petition the Court, but the Tennessee law may be one of the more vulnerable of the 21 such statutes enacted around the country. 

According to the ACLU of Tennessee, the law limits its ban to kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a “targeted restriction” that “discriminates based on both sex and the fact that a person is transgender and violates the Equal Protection Clause.” Tennessee also tramples on the rights of the parents of transgender minors, who are stripped of their ability to make medical decisions for their children despite clear constitutional ground rules.

I really should check but I think there are several GLBT-related petitions hanging around the Court at this point. For example, I know one of our foes filed an appeal on a state ban on conversion therapy, arguing that restricting a professional’s right to pursue this damaging practice was tantamount to a block on free speech. I think there are some others but, like Billie Eilish, I’m gay and tired so I’ll move on. (The singer posted a selfie with those words written on her cheek on X or Insta or somewhere the other day, much to everyone’s excitement. Whatever. She seems nice.) At any rate, the Court decides whether or not to take cases during the weekly or biweekly conferences, and they often make us wait around months for a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Holiday Time

I’m actually a little behind today, because a) our coffee pot died and I had to wait for my wife to come home with takeout coffee, and b) I was doing some research and discovered you can apply to earn $2,500 for watching 25 holiday movies in 25 days. I stopped everything to fill out the forms and will be eagerly waiting to see if I’m chosen. I always watch two or three every year. What’s another 22 or 23? 

There’s usually a new one from Netflix about the prince and the princess in the tiny Alpine country with the disabled sister and the friendly king and queen. I think they’ve had a baby by now, and I’m not sure, but maybe the king died and the prince is king? Must check this! 

There are also gay holiday pictures, and it feels as if there are more every season. Last year we had the one where the guy and his “best friend” go back to his home town, realize they were meant to be together and abandon LA to open a flower shop in the little town. Really, guys? That only happened at the end, because our guy was dating the cute hottie handyman or something during most of the movie. And when I say “dating,” I mean they went for coffee, bought a Christmas tree, and went to the kids’ Christmas pageant. No wonder that relationship went nowhere. 

Anyway, I’ll let you know if I make the cut.

Shameful Lusts

Speaking of holiday things, One Million Moms is up in arms over the lineup for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the yawn fest that takes over the airwaves for interminable hours every Thanksgiving Day. We were always “allowed” to watch the tedious procession when I was a kid as if this was a big treat. Thanks for nothing, parents. 

Anyway, this year’s parade includes some performers from two Broadway shows, Shucked and & Juliet, both of which feature non-binary actors (and neither of which I’ve ever heard of). Some 17,000 people signed a petition from the Moms condemning the “liberal nonsense” as the Moms put it. “Shame on Macy’s for promoting and sponsoring this type of entertainment,” they tsked. “It is clear that Macy’s does not have our children’s best interests in mind. Macy’s needs to know that trust must be earned, and once trust is lost, it is difficult to get back.” 

In other Million Mom complaints, we hear that Vitaminwater is using Lil Nas X as a spokesperson, “pushing an agenda of sexual confusion instead of promoting its product.” The ads, Moms say, attempt “to blur the biological distinctions between males and females. Thanks, Vitaminwater. Now, parents have to explain these disturbing ads to their confused children!”

Who are these children the Moms continually write about? Poor creatures; they are disturbed, perplexed, and shaken to the core by routine TV commercials and innocuous cartoon characters. Could that fragility possibly be the fault of, um, the Moms? Nah. It’s us and our insidious propaganda.

“These gay-inclusive commercials are attempting to desensitize and brainwash viewers by convincing them that homosexuality is natural,” the Moms say. “In reality, it is an unnatural love that is forbidden by Scripture. Romans 1:26-27 makes this very clear.”

I just looked that one up: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Spicy!

And the Land We Belong to Is Grand!

Let’s see what else. Have you heard that Kellyanne Conway’s rebellious daughter, Claudia, is gay? I didn’t know that. I vaguely remember this girl posting some family spats on Instagram, much to her mother’s chagrin. But lately, Kellyanne was given the “Spirit of Lincoln” award by the ridiculous Log Cabin (gay) Republicans based on her supposedly tolerant embrace of Claudia’s sexual orientation. “I don’t care if you’re with a girl or Mickey Mouse, as long as you get your ass up for school,” Kellyanne reportedly told her daughter. Get that woman a PFLAG membership card!

In other mildly pro-GLBT news, our friend the Pope has fired a virulently anti-gay bishop, Texas-based Joseph Strickland, a man who refused to resign on his own. I guess he did this after an “apostolic visitation” last summer, whatever that is, when it seems Bishop Strickland did not impress. The dismissal was announced November 4.

And while we’re in Texas, a school principal in Sherman along with some conservative administrators generated some negative national news headlines when they delayed the school production of Oklahoma! because a trans boy was cast in one of the male roles as were a few girls (since there were not enough boys in the drama group). According to their new policy, all actors would be required to play characters that matched their genders at birth, a theatrical dictate that would have come as a shock to Shakespeare companies and many other stage producers. 

The group also decided that the musical would be replaced by a shorter kids’ version, designed for younger audiences, telling the press in a statement that the regular show “contained mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content.” That’s not the Oklahoma! that I remember, but who the hell knows what these people see when they look at the world around them. 

The fiasco was rectified after a unanimous vote by the full school board, which restored the original cast and production at a public meeting November 13. Dozens of people showed up at the meeting to protest the censorship, and Board President Brad Morgan apologized to the school community for the entire brouhaha. 

“We want to apologize to our students, parents and our community regarding the circumstances that they have had to go through,” Morgan wrote. “We do embrace all of our Board goals, to include addressing the diverse needs of our students and empowering them for success in a diverse and complex world.”

The Bell Tolls

Finally, there was a sad story out of Smiths Station, Alabama, where the small-town mayor killed himself after a local paper published photos of him dressed in women’s lingerie and quoted some erotic fiction he had written. F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, who had been mayor for seven years, apologized on a church website where he served as a pastor, and friends say he was profoundly upset by the exposure. 

A couple of days after the news report, sheriff’s deputies conducting a wellness check followed his car down the road, but could not prevent Copeland from shooting himself. By all accounts, he was a hard-working mayor and a nice guy; a father of three in a happy marriage. 

The news outlet, 1819 News, was a rightwing offshoot of Breitbart, but our own news outlets are often the ones to take hypocrites to account. This time, however, there was no evidence that Copeland was ever anti-GLBT, and his story gives me pause as I look back on the many times I gleefully reported on the secret lives of various hapless men with wives and families. I don’t promise never to do so again, but I may think twice.

arostow@aol.com

GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on November 16, 2023

The post Ann Rostow: What’s in a Title? – San Francisco Bay Instances appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

After completing a historic landing on the lunar surface, putting India in the tiny club of countries that have safely placed a spacecraft on the moon, the Chandrayaan-3 lander is now asleep — resting through the 14-day lunar night before mission controllers attempt to reawaken the spacecraft later this month.

The primary goals of the mission have now been successfully checked off the list, cementing the Chandrayaan-3 lander’s legacy in exploration history. For nearly two weeks, the lander carried out technology demonstrations and data collection mainly focused on analyzing the composition of the moon’s soil and super-thin atmosphere.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the lunar surface on August 23. The safe touchdown made India only the fourth nation in the world to complete such a feat, following the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. So far in the 21st Century, only China and India have landed on the moon.

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The Chandrayaan-3 lander is captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently in orbit around the moon. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s dark shadow is visible against a bright halo surrounding the vehicle, which resulted from the rocket plume interacting with the fine-grained regolith (soil).

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

It also marked the first mission to explore so close to the lunar south pole, a region of key scientific and strategic importance for global space powers because it is believed to be home to deposits of water ice. The resource could be harvested and converted into drinking water or even rocket fuel for future missions that explore deeper into the cosmos.

In India, the Chandryaan-3 mission has been hailed as a point of national pride. More than 70 million people watched online coverage of the landing, and thousands more packed into auditoriums and viewing parties across the country.

“Our tireless scientific efforts will continue in order to develop better understanding of the Universe for the welfare of entire humanity,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media September 2, celebrating the Chandrayaan-3 mission and the recent launch of India’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying the sun.

The Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, confirmed on Monday, September 4, that the Chandryaan-3 lunar lander had been put into sleep mode, as the spacecraft isn’t designed to continue collecting scientific data while its landing spot is in the Earth’s shadow, or lunar night.

But the space agency hopes that the lander — and a small six-wheeled rover it deployed — will be reawakened later this month, on September 22.

A look back at Chandryaan-3

The Chandrayaan-3 landing in August came mere days after Russia failed in its attempt to put a similar spacecraft, Luna-25, near the moon’s south pole. Standing in sharp contrast to the tense failures of Luna-25, the Chandryaan-3 vehicle almost immediately began dispatching updates on its successes.

The day after landing, the ISRO confirmed that the Chandryaan-3 lander had successfully deployed the six-wheeled lunar rover that had ridden to the surface tucked inside the spacecraft’s body.

It was released by rolling down a small ramp before setting off “in pursuit of lunar secrets at the South Pole,” the ISRO said on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Together, the lander, which weighs about 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds), and the 26-kilogram (57.3-pound) rover are packed with nearly a dozen scientific instruments. They include a laser that can analyze the chemical composition of the moon’s regolith — aiding in the hunt for water ice — and the ultra-thin layer of gases that make up the moon’s exosphere. The rover is also equipped with a seismometer that attempted to detect quakes within the moon’s interior.

The ISRO confirmed that all the instruments were “performing normally” during the mission.

The space agency shared sporadic updates on social media, posting first glimpses at various data points gathered by the lander and rover, which managed to travel a total of more than 100 meters (330 feet) across the lunar surface and was able to snap photos of the lander during its trek.

One experiment measured the temperature of the moon’s topsoil at various depths, and ISRO scientist BHM Darukesha told a local news outlet, PTI, that the surface was hotter than expected.

“We all believed that the temperature could be somewhere around 20 degree centigrade to 30 degrees centigrade (68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit) on the surface but it is 70 degree centigrade (158 degrees Fahrenheit). This is surprisingly higher than what we had expected,” he said.

The rover also detected some seismic activity using an instrument designed to measure rumbles and quakes beneath the lunar surface, and the rover used a spectroscope to confirm the presence of sulfur near the moon’s south pole. Now scientists will aim to investigate how the element got there and whether it exists naturally on the surface or was put there by a meteor strike or volcanic activity, according to the ISRO.

The ISRO put the rover to rest on September 2, though its solar panels were oriented to catch the first sun rays as the moon travels back into daytime later this month.

“Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments! Else, it will forever stay there as India’s lunar ambassador,” the ISRO posted on X.

But the lander wasn’t finished. It completed another stunning feat on September 4, firing up its engines to lift itself about 40 centimeters (16 inches) off the ground and make a small hop to land about 30 to 40 centimeters (12 to 16 inches) away from its original position.

The ISRO emphasized the importance of this technology demonstration, noting that being able to get a lander back off the lunar surface will be essential for future missions that aim to return soil samples — or even astronauts — back home after a lunar mission.

Shortly after, the lander joined the rover, entering its own slumber and awaiting its reawakening when the sunshine returns to its resting place.

It’s not yet certain that the lander and rover will, in fact, properly function when mission controllers attempt to turn them back on later this month.

But all of the primary objectives the ISRO set out for the mission have been met.

Photos: Rare blue supermoon dazzles stargazers around the globe

A peacock sits on a chimney as a nearly full moon rises behind it, in Hyderabad, India, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. August 30 will see the month’s second supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position to Earth. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

Mahesh Kumar A.

The supermoon rises near the equestrian statue of Damdin Sukhbaatar on Sukhbaatar Square in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. August 30 sees the month’s second supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position to Earth. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Ng Han Guan

A Supermoon is seen on the sky as a woman walks on the street, in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. August 30 sees the month’s second supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position to Earth. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Themba Hadebe

The supermoon rises behind the ancient temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It’s dubbed a supermoon because it’s closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Thanassis Stavrakis

The supermoon rises over the Mediterranean sea as a boat passes at Konnos bay near Ayia Napa and Protaras on the eastern part of the island of Cyprus, on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It’s dubbed a supermoon because it’s closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Petros Karadjias

The supermoon rises behind Ayioi Anargiroi Orthodox church near Ayia Napa and Protaras in the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It is dubbed a supermoon because it is closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Petros Karadjias

The full moon rises behind the Galata tower in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It is dubbed a supermoon because it is closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil Hamra

The supermoon rises in the sky of Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It’s dubbed a supermoon because it’s closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Adel Hana

The supermoon rises in the sky over the houses of Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It’s dubbed a supermoon because it’s closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Adel Hana

The August Super Blue Moon sets behind a historical building and the St. Basil’s Cathedral, right, as people walk in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rises Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It is dubbed a supermoon because it is closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Alexander Zemlianichenko

The moon known as blue moon rises behind the small village of Ujue, northern Spain, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

Alvaro Barrientos

A supermoon rises over the Colosseum in Rome, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Gregorio Borgia

The supermoon rises behind the Chlemoutsi medival castle in Kyllini, Peloponnese, Greece, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Petros Giannakouris

The full moon rises beyond the Martyrs statue, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. August 30 will see the month’s second supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position to Earth. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hussein Malla

Akıncı unmanned aerial craft passing in front of the Supermoon during a demonstration flight on the first day of Teknofest technology and aerospace festival in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Emrah Gurel

A supermoon rises over Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, also known as a blue moon. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

Matilde Campodonico

People watch a supermoon rise above Lisbon, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. It’s the month’s second supermoon, when a full moon appears a little bigger and brighter thanks to its slightly closer position to Earth. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

Armando Franca

A rare Blue Supermoon rises over Lake Michigan as spectators watch from Chicago’s 31st Street beach Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Charles Rex Arbogast

The supermoon, blue moon, rises behind a thick layer of clouds near a statue of the angel Moroni perched atop The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, in Kensington, Md. The cosmic curtain rose Wednesday night with the second full moon of the month, the reason it is considered blue. It’s dubbed a supermoon because it’s closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Julio Cortez

A super moon rises behind Arthur Ashe Stadium at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, in New York. A rare blue supermoon — the closest full moon of the year — dazzled stargazers Wednesday night. It was the second full moon of August, thus the blue label. And it was unusually close to Earth, therefore a supermoon. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Manu Fernandez

A man watches from the upper deck of a baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates as the moon rises in the distance Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. The moon was a rare blue supermoon, named so because it was the second full moon in August, thus the blue label, and it was unusually close to Earth, therefore a supermoon. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Charlie Riedel

The full moon rises beyond a sign in the outfield during a baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. The moon was a rare blue supermoon, named so because it was the second full moon in August, thus the blue label, and it was unusually close to Earth, therefore a supermoon. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Charlie Riedel

A blue supermoon rises between the Salesforce Tower and the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Eric Risberg

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CNN
 — 

Another big American retailer announced it was pulling out of downtown San Francisco.

Nordstrom blamed flagging foot traffic and the “dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market” when it announced it would not renew the lease on its massive retail location as well as its discount outlet in the heart of the city.

Numerous other brands have also said they will pull out of the area. In April, Whole Foods temporarily shut a flagship store that opened just last year, citing worker safety.

What’s happening in San Francisco has become a key storyline in a larger national narrative about crime and perceptions of crime.

It’s a storyline that CNN reporter Kyung Lah experienced back in March when she and a crew went to San Francisco to report on how crime has scrambled the city’s politics. Last November, voters in the majority-Asian American Sunset District replaced a progressive Chinese American incumbent for supervisor with a moderate White man, Joel Engardio.

“San Francisco, the most liberal place in America, is saying enough. We want safe streets. We want good schools,” Engardio told Lah during an interview at City Hall. “That should tell anyone – pay attention.”

Proving the point, the window of the car rented by Lah and her crew was being smashed and their bags grabbed as she conducted that interview. It happened in about four seconds, Lah said, and despite the fact that the CNN crew had hired professional security to watch their car. Watch her report.

Lah told me officers from the San Francisco Police Department ultimately recovered her emptied bags and passport.

For a better sense of what exactly is going on in one of the world’s great cities, I talked to Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist for Mission Local, an independent, nonprofit news site. Full disclosure: Joe and I went to college together in the Bay Area and were colleagues at The Daily Californian. Excerpts of our conversation are below.

WOLF: I’m out here on the East Coast. I see that businesses like Nordstrom and Whole Foods are leaving downtown San Francisco, and there is this theme that crime is driving them away. What’s your view?

ESKENAZI: There is crime in downtown San Francisco, but there always has been.

I think the notion that these businesses were driven out by crime is frankly dishonest. That’s always been a factor. But it wasn’t like Mid-Market (where the Nordstrom is located) was a serene place before the pandemic.

I think the Nordstrom people were very responsible in what they said. The letter that was sent to everybody was very upfront that there was decreased foot traffic. They weren’t making money.

It wasn’t good business for them anymore. And Nordstrom, in fact, closed their Stonestown Mall outlet in 2019, which is a mall more in the periphery of San Francisco.

So the problem here is that your big, high-end, mall-type retail is dying. It was already having lots of trouble before the pandemic and that kind of greased the skids. That’s a big problem for downtown San Francisco. It’s hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space that’s suddenly going to go vacant.

To say it was chased out by crime is a preferred narrative of people for their own worldview.

I just looked back and found an article that I wrote in 2014 about complaints that one out of every four police calls in that district was in or near the Westfield Mall. That was there before.

WOLF: There’s a tendency, if you’re looking from outside of San Francisco in, to try to connect dots between different stories. There’s the murder of a tech executive, the election of a more moderate city council, the recall of the district attorney there. There are reports about skyscrapers that are essentially vacant right now. There’s this perception that the inside of the city is being hollowed out.

ESKENAZI: That’s true, but that doesn’t have anything to do with crime. That has to do with the fact that the entire inside of the city was devoted to office space for businesses that are now going remote and cutting down.

People have different opinions on this, but I feel like it’s kind of asking a lot for the city to have 2020 hindsight. You can see where the city made itself vulnerable, devoting so much space to office space exclusively.

And in this case, tech companies were so flush that they alone could afford to buy up that office space, and in fact bought it up when it was still even conceptual office space. So like 100% of the vacancies were going to tech.

When tech workers dictated that they would rather be working from home or working a combination, that’s what happened. If you go to the Financial District now – it’s not nearly as bad as everyone would think. There are still people around. It’s just not crowded. And it hollows out very quickly once working hours are done.

But that’s always how it was. I think office vacancies speak for themselves.

We’re going to see how bad it really is when rents come down. A lot of the people who own those buildings are extremely leveraged and can’t afford to lower rents. So rents are still higher than in other cities nearby and in competing cities.

You’re not going to get new people with those rates. Sooner or later people are going to have to bite the bullet and decide they want the building to be largely full at a lower rate or largely empty at a higher rate.

And then we’re going to see if other types of businesses move in – the types of businesses San Francisco economically banished a long time ago.

WOLF: A separate issue than crime, but potentially related, is homelessness. We’ve written more about that, certainly, with regard to Los Angeles, but I wonder what it’s like from a perspective of running into a large number of people who are unhoused on the streets. Is that changing the perceptions in the city?

ESKENAZI: There have always been large numbers of unhoused people in San Francisco. The difference now is that with fewer people downtown, a higher percentage of people you see are visibly homeless.

What’s more, there are more overtly miserable people out than there used to be, for lack of a better word. You’re seeing more chaotic, horrific conditions.

You earlier mentioned crime, and in people’s minds, being uneasy about drug use in the streets or antisocial behavior is equated in their minds with crime. People feel uneasy, and that’s understandable.

But this feeling of uneasiness does not square with crime. If you take a step back, statistically, that’s the case. San Francisco has lots of overt misery, lots of overt drug use, lots of things that you wish you didn’t see and that the city should be dealing with in ways other than tossing people in jail or pushing them into neighboring counties.

San Francisco also has lots of property crime because there’s a great divergence of wealth and people steal things. But San Francisco’s violent crime rate is at a near historic low right now.

This dynamic was on full display when it was just assumed that tech mogul Bob Lee was stabbed to death by a homeless crazy, and it turns out that the man in custody is a fellow tech executive.

We have a big problem with the future of downtown and how it’s going to be productive and provide the tax revenue that this city depends upon. The departures of our big anchor businesses because it’s no longer profitable – that’s a big problem. It is separate and apart from the perception that it’s “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” here on the city streets, which just really isn’t true.

WOLF: Perception can lead to change, though, even if it isn’t specifically reality. How is the perception of the city as Thunderdome going to affect the politics there? People’s willingness to live there? If you describe a sense of uneasiness, even though that might not mean more crime, it sounds like a not-pleasant place to be.

ESKENAZI: I think it’s definitely going to have its effect on how things are done in San Francisco, but we’re going to have to see what that looks like.

I’d say that half-formed “solutions” meant to address something that isn’t statistically a problem are not going to have happy outcomes. You know, calling in the Highway Patrol and the National Guard to deal with our horrible drug addiction problem isn’t going to do much if it’s all for show, even if they get out on the streets and start collaring drug users and tossing them in jail.

We’re currently arresting narcotics criminals at about one-ninth of volume that district attorney (now Vice President) Kamala Harris presided over during prior police administrations. The tough parts of downtown were still tough back then. There was still a lot of overt drug use and misery.

The drugs are different now. The drugs are more dangerous now. But it would be very hard to just patrol and arrest your way out of this problem. It’s going to take more thorough, complete solutions.

I’m not really even seeing the willingness to have honest discussions about this, because the whole premise is being taken and grabbed and run with in a dishonest way.

WOLF: What am I missing?

ESKENAZI: I think that people are scared and people are uneasy and people are fed up.

But that’s different than saying OK, we’re just gonna hire more cops or OK, we’re going to just do something simple. These are complicated problems. And San Francisco can’t solve some of America’s problems.

One of the reasons in San Francisco you see people shooting drugs on the street is because in other parts of the country, those people can afford to be inside.

San Francisco has land-use issues and housing issues. Land use is a bit like sand; it gets into everything here. Every discussion ends up coming back to that, which is very unsatisfactory and makes it very hard to solve problems.

A (former New York City Mayor Rudy) Giuliani type situation of just like booting misery and overt antisocial behavior into the next county isn’t going to end up working here, because it would seem that other people have that idea elsewhere and they encourage people to come here.

WOLF: Let me flip the conversation around a little bit. You mentioned Vice President Harris. The current governor of California, Gavin Newsom, used to be the mayor of San Francisco. The city has an outsize influence in state and national politics. What is your view of how those two people’s careers will progress?

ESKENAZI: I think Kamala Harris will rise or fall based upon factors other than her performance as district attorney in San Francisco quite some time ago.

I think that it’s very hard to see some of Gavin Newsom’s moves here in California as other than politically based. Gavin Newsom does not seem to want to give fodder to (Florida Gov.) Ron DeSantis and, as a result, something that we know would work here in California, which is having supervised drug use centers – which have worked elsewhere in the country and worked elsewhere in the world – he vetoed that bill.

So we’re left with doing the same thing we’ve always done with regard to drug users and drug addicted people, which is not much – and the death toll is staggering.

I have a hard time seeing that as anything other than a politically based move. And he didn’t give Ron DeSantis something to tease him about, and people are dead on the streets. It’s very frustrating for those of us who live here.

WOLF: You’ve lived there pretty much your entire life. Has the city gotten better or worse in the last 40 some odd years?

ESKENAZI: It’s different. Some things are better, and some things are worse. People who tell you differently are seeing things through blinders, frankly. Full disclosure: You and I went to college together, and I grew up in the area. After Berkeley, I ended up moving full time to San Francisco 20 some odd years ago.

When I moved to San Francisco, Zach, there were well over 100 murders a year.

We’ve had as few as 41 murders, I think, two years ago (note: it was 2019). We’re on pace to have about 56, 55. So it’s very different. Violent crime is much lower now than it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

But property crime is off the hook. And overt misery is off the hook. And the budget of San Francisco has ballooned. So people are frustrated.

But simply saying things are worse or things are better strikes me as being reductive. Things are certainly more expensive.

The post What’s actually happening with crime in San Francisco? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

RONG-GONG LIN II
Los Angeles Times

The expected annual cost from earthquake damage in California is climbing sharply amid an increase in property values and a better understanding of how soft soils could result in greater damage during shaking.

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California is projected to lose an average of $9.6 billion a year from earthquake damage, the new estimates show. That’s a 157% increase from the last estimate, in 2017, when the price tag was $3.7 billion a year, according to a new report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“In any given year a big earthquake strikes … you can easily anticipate a $100 billion loss,” USGS research structural engineer Kishor Jaiswal, the principal investigator for the report, told the Los Angeles Times.

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The totals underscore just how much the value of older buildings has soared in recent years, yet they remain vulnerable to major damage or collapse in the next big earthquake.

It is also a sober reminder of the seismic toll facing California. After the state’s other major earthquakes — in 1906 in San Francisco, 1933 in Long Beach, 1989 in the Bay Area and 1994 in Northridge — it took years, if not decades, for cities to recover, and massive costs had to be paid not only by governments and insurers but also individuals who were never made whole.

According to the new report, Los Angeles and Orange counties share the highest price tag of any metro area in the nation, with a combined projected average annual loss of $3.3 billion a year. In second place is the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area, with a projected loss of $1.8 billion a year.

The seismic price tag for California is about 65% of the nation’s annual earthquake cost, which is $14.7 billion a year.

The projected annual average earthquake losses in other areas of California include $1.3 billion for Riverside and San Bernardino counties, $917 million for the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area, $285 million for San Diego County and $220 million for Ventura County.

Assuming the yearly earthquake loss projection remains the same, over the course of three decades, California is projected to lose $288 billion from earthquake damage. Such a figure is consistent with recent earthquake scenarios, such as a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault or a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward fault.

Of that total, the five-county Southern California region — L.A., Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties — would lose nearly $150 billion. And the nine-county Bay Area would lose roughly $90 billion.

“It’s a sobering reminder about why we need to prepare for those rare but large earthquakes, as just one major event can eclipse the costs of the more frequent but smaller ones,” USGS Director David Applegate said in a statement.

The authors of the report calculated an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis.

It’s similar to how car insurers calculate the premium people pay yearly: People might be in a collision once every few years, but insurers calculate a yearly bill for drivers that takes into account the annual average projected cost of future collisions. How much the yearly car insurance premium will be can vary, depending on factors such as the driver’s age, accident history and the type of vehicle driven.

The magnitude 6.7 earthquake that hit Northridge in 1994 caused as much as $20 billion in damage and more than $40 billion in economic loss, “making it the costliest earthquake disaster in U.S. history,” according to the California Geological Survey.

And the damage from that earthquake, centered in the suburban San Fernando Valley, pales in comparison to the destruction that a major quake centered beneath older neighborhoods, such as in downtown L.A., would cause.

The 1994 earthquake’s magnitude was relatively moderate. By contrast, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake would produce 45 times more energy, and such a temblor hasn’t hit Southern California since 1857 and Northern California since 1906.

The world’s last magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck in February, resulting in strong shaking in Turkey and Syria. More than 50,000 people died.

A significant portion of California’s buildings constructed in the 20th century are vulnerable to earthquake damage or collapse. Retrofitting them now would leave cities far more resilient — keeping people alive, homes intact, and workplaces and neighborhoods functional.

The state’s rise in property values could enable some owners to use the equity they’ve accumulated to finance retrofits, experts say. A retrofit now can cost far less than repairing extensive damage after an earthquake, which could leave a building so wrecked it might need to be replaced.

Some cities in California have required property owners to retrofit certain types of vulnerable buildings. A Los Angeles law passed in 2015 requiring that apartment buildings with flimsy first stories — often used for carports — be strengthened has resulted in retrofits of more than 8,700 out of 12,400. That’s a completion rate of 70%. An analysis estimated that at least $1.3 billion was spent on those retrofits.

FEMA and state officials have worked to make grants available for retrofits. Homeowners in certain ZIP codes in Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley can apply for retrofit grants of up to $13,000 through the end of May to strengthen “soft-story homes,” where there’s a top-heavy living space built over a garage that is vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake.

“This study reinforces the nation’s need to be proactive about making communities safer from threats like earthquakes,” FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks said in a statement. “This includes adopting the latest seismic building codes and investing in earthquake resilience projects.”

But many other cities in California have not acted to require retrofits. And even in L.A., city officials have yet to address the potential seismic risk of older steel-frame high-rises built before the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The USGS has said that it is plausible that five steel-frame buildings in Southern California could collapse in a hypothetical magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the San Andreas fault, and 10 could be so damaged that they would be no longer safe to occupy.

Some cities remain far behind. Much of the Inland Empire, which covers Riverside and San Bernardino counties, still has many older brick buildings that are not retrofitted — among the highest-risk structures in an earthquake. They can collapse, not only killing the buildings’ occupants but also raining projectiles onto nearby sidewalks, parking lots and roads, with the remains of brick walls hurled with such force that they could crush cars and buses.

In the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, a brick wall in San Francisco fell onto a parking lot, leaving cars crushed; five people died. And in a magnitude 6.3 quake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2011, falling bricks rained onto Red Bus No. 702, killing eight people, including the driver.

The number of people who need to be housed after a major earthquake could be enormous. The study estimated that a quake so large it had a 1-in-250 chance of occurring in any given year could result in more than 200,000 people needing short-term shelter in California. In an earthquake so large it had a 1-in-1,000 chance of occurring in any given year, more than 700,000 people would need short-term shelter.

The latest study also presents a more realistic picture of expected damage in places including L.A. and the Bay Area, where many buildings are on top of basins that amplify ground motions during an earthquake, Jaiswal said. Such shaking can result in a worse outcome for tall buildings that are atop basins compared with those built directly on bedrock.

“If you have a deep basin, with sediments overlaying on the hard rock, those ground motions get amplified,” Jaiswal said.

Compared to earlier models, the latest report factors in localized softer soil and basin conditions, which contributed to the increase in the projected damage cost for places such as L.A. and the Bay Area.

Other areas that saw an increase in earthquake hazard from the previous model include the Salt Lake City area, and much of the Big Island of Hawaii, Maui’s valley region and the southern coast of Oahu.

The Seattle area was estimated to have an annual earthquake loss of $781 million; the Portland, Oregon area, $403 million; the Salt Lake City area, $174 million; the Memphis, Tennessee area, $131 million; and the New York City region, $49 million.

The fact that earthquake risk exists in areas of the eastern U.S. may come as a surprise, but such quakes can happen. A magnitude 5.8 earthquake near Mineral, Virginia in 2011 caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, and necessitated $15 million in repairs to the Washington Monument.

Other damaging earthquakes in the eastern U.S. on record include one off of Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1755, estimated to be magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Virginia in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by future President Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, South Carolina in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.

In the early 19th century, there were three large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone, around the area along the Mississippi River where Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas meet. The largest earthquakes were a magnitude 7.5 in December 1811, a magnitude 7.3 in January 1812 and a magnitude 7.5 in February 1812.

“Earthquakes are a national problem,” the USGS said in a statement.

New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but one that occurs could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and the age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. One big risk for New York City is a large number of older brick buildings that have not been retrofitted.

In early October, a group of volunteers from Napa County Landmarks gathered at the Napa’s downtown historic post office. Their goal: rewrap the huge lanterns that flank the post office entrances. The post office was heavily damaged in the 2014 earthquake and has since been sold for development.

Jennifer Huffman, Register

Throwback Thursday: Photos from the 2014 Napa earthquake

Fire damage after earthquake in Napa

Four homes were destroyed by fire after the quake and up to eight more were damaged at the Napa Valley Mobile Home Park, according to the Napa Fire Department. No injuries were reported.

Howard Yune/Register

Napa Earthquake

This building, located at Second and Brown streets, sustained major damage in Napa’s 6.0 earthquake. California is predicted to have a much stronger quake in coming decades.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

Browns Valley Market employees clean up the disaster left by the 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. on Sunday morning, August 24, 2014.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Larry Giovannoni, owner of Browns Valley Market in Napa, pauses while cleaning up the disaster left by the earthquake. Giovannoni estimates that their losses will be over $1 million.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Skateboarders use the buckled pavement of Meadowood Court as ramps for performing stunts after last August’s earthquake.

Register file photo

Napa Earthquake

While waiting for inspectors, Vintner’s Collective manager Garret Murphy stands outside the historic Main Street building whose facade was badly damaged in the Aug. 24 earthquake. 

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Nicholas George of Carneros cranes his head down into a deep fissure in front of his house on Old Sonoma Road on the day of the South Napa earthquake Scientists used more sophisticated tools for measuring the quake. 

Register file photo

Napa Earthquake

Two men walk past an earthquake-damaged home on First Street on Monday morning. Residents throughout the valley spent Monday assessing the damage and cleaning up from the 6.0 earthquake that struck Sunday.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

Damage is visible to the facade of the Napa post office on Second Street on Sunday morning following the quake. Repairs have not yet begun on the downtown building.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

The damaged facade at Alexandria Square at Brown and Second streets became an iconic image of Napa’s earthquake.

J.L. Sousa/Register file photo

Napa Earthquake

A number of glass panes were broken at the downtown Napa Post Office following a 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Sunday, causing major damage to a number of downtown buildings.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

One of the many cracks that developed following Sunday mornings earthquake is seen on Old Sonoma Road on Monday morning. City and county crews were patching roads throughout the valley.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

The Historic Courthouse was red-tagged after a section of building fell off during Sunday’s 6.0 earthquake. Repairs will be expensive and take a year or more, officials say. 

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

Buckled and cracked asphalt, like seen here on Craigie Court, is a common sight throughout Napa following the 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck on Sunday, Aug. 24 at 3:20 a.m.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

Jim Nichols of South Dakota disposes of debris at Browns Valley Elementary School on Monday morning following the 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Napa on Sunday morning. He was visiting his mother who lives in Napa when the quake struck and was cleaning up at her home. There are a number of locations where local residents can get rid of debris from the quake.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa quake debris

A mountain of earthquake debris — damaged dishes, furnishings and treasured possessions — is piled up in front of the Education Center at Jefferson Street and Lincoln Avenue Tuesday afternoon in Napa Valley. With schools reopening Wednesday, Napa Valley Unified School District is asking the community to cease using the Ed Center site. Debris boxes are available at a half-dozen city parks.

Howard Yune — Napa Valley Register

Napa Earthquake

Dennis Fagent, right, of ZFA Structural Engineers, and local architect and consultant Stephen Cuddy assess the damage done to the historic Vintner’s Collective building by Sunday’s 6.0 earthquake. The building was red tagged on Tuesday, but inspectors on Wednesday found that the inside of the building was intact, concluding that the repair needed was largely on the outside veneer.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Structural damage to the Napa Square building has forced the closure of some neighboring buildings after Sunday’s 6.0 earthquake.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

Napa’s Chief Buidling Official Dan Kavarian tapes a red tag Thursday morning  to the door of the recently opened Velo Pizzeria on Main Street. Though the restaurant was recently seismically retrofitted, it abuts a masonry building on Brown Street that poses a safety threat to adjacent structures, according to the city. The Brown Street building, which has also been red-tagged, is owned by Brian Silver, a Napa attorney.

who has historically refused to bring his buildings up to earthquake codes.

Janelle Wetzstein/Register

Napa Earthquake

Residents of the Charter Oaks Apartments on Browns Valley Road are seen near one of the carports that collapsed following a 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Sunday.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

This home at Vallejo and Yajome streets was knocked off its foundation following the 6.0 earthquake August earthquake. 

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

The sidewalk buckled where a crack went across Twin Oaks Drive and through the home of Tim and Ann Whitlock, knocking the two story home 5 inches off its foundation.

Register file photo

Napa Earthquake

A brick chimney on a home on Hermosa Drive lies in shambles after last August’s earthquake.

Eagle file photo

Napa Earthquake

A broken water pipe gushes a stream of water over a deep crack in the pavement along White Cliff Circle after a 6.0 earthquake struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. on Sunday morning, August 24, 2014.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Napa firefighters spray down one of four homes at the Napa Valley Mobile Park destroyed by fire after a 6.0 earthquake struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Aug. 24. The fire department believes the fire was caused by a ruptured gas line.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Falling debris damaged this car at Third and Brown streets following a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Sunday.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

The Sam Kee Laundry building, which currently houses The Vintner’s Collective, shows damage from the 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Sunday.

Brenda Speth/Register

Napa Earthquake

Napa firefighters subdue the last flames of a fire that destroyed 4 homes at the Napa Valley Mobile Park after a 6.0 earthquake struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Sunday morning, August 24, 2014. The fire department believes the fire was caused by a ruptured gas line.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

Quake caused major damage to the tasting room and barrel storage building at Trefethen Family Vineyards. This was originally the Eshcol Winery building, built in 1886, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

One of the glass panels on the 9/11 Memorial in downtown Napa shattered following a 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. Sunday. A number of downtown buildings sustained major damage.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

Merchandise is tossed inside of Shackford’s Kitchen Store following a 6.0 earthquake which struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. causing major damage to a number of downtown buildings.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

This fountain in the Christian Brothers Courtyard at Justin-Siena High School was one of the casualties of Sunday morning’s 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa.

J.L. Sousa/Register

Napa Earthquake

A 6.0 earthquake struck Napa at 3:20 a.m. last Sunday. This photo was taken inside the Register newsroom.

Lisa James/Register

Napa Earthquake

People stop to survey the damage to Quent Cordair Fine Art Gallery in downtown Napa following a 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa at 3:20 a.m.

J.L. Sousa/Register

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The post Projected losses from a serious California earthquake soar. What’s behind seismic inflation? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The San Francisco 49ers made multiple moves ahead of their season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday afternoon.

Obviously, the focal point has been Nick Bosa’s record-breaking contract extension. He’s now the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL after inking a five-year, $175 million deal.

However, the 49ers also restructured multiple contracts to create a ton of cap room. They now head into the first Sunday of the NFL regular season with north of $44 million in cap room, via Spotrac.com.

San Francisco restructured the contracts of offensive tackle Trent Williams, tight end George Kittle and defensive lineman Arik Armstead. The three moves saved a combined $35 million against the 2023 NFL salary cap.

Teams generally like to go into the regular season with between $6-7 million to have some flexibility. That’s the case with more than half of the NFL. But outside of the Cleveland Browns ($36.78 million) no other team has more than $15.5 million in cap room.

MORE FROM FORBESNick Bosa Contract Extension: What It Means For The San Francisco 49ersBy Vincent Frank

In short, something could very well be on the horizon as it relates to the 49ers. I’ll look at what’s next with all of this cap room below.

49ers Cap Room Could Roll Over To 2024

As of right now, San Francisco is projected to have less than $5 million in cap room for the 2024 offseason.

The 49ers could push back proverbial salary cap hell by doing more restructures at that point. Doing this again with Williams, Armstead, Kittle, Warner, Samuel and Hargrave would save an estimated $69 million. But pushing larger cap hits to later years is not a recipe for long-term success. That’s true even with the NFL’s record revenue and television contracts leading to larger salary cap totals moving forward. Rolling this $44 million into next offseason is a legitimate option.

How Nick Bosa’s Contract Plays A Role

the San Francisco 49ers could tell us a story. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Over the Cap has details of Bosa’s contract and year-by-year cap hits. His cap hits are $11.01 million, $14.67 million and $20.52 million over the next three seasons, respectively.

San Francisco stayed true to its MO of backloading large cap hits when signing players to contract extensions. Bosa’s cap hits in the final three years of his contract comes in at $137 million. Let that sink in for a second.

By opting not to frontload Bosa’s contract while creating a ton of cap room, something seems to be up behind the scenes in Santa Clara.

Brandon Aiyuk Contract Extension

Aiyuk contract extension. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

The former first-round pick and 1,000-yard receiver is already set to count a whopping $14.1 million against the cap next season, the final year of his rookie contract.

By making Aiyuk one of the NFL’s highest-paid receivers early in the 2023 season, the 49ers could even lower his 2024 cap figure. The belief is that Aiyuk will earn a new deal averaging out to the 10 highest-paid wide receivers in the NFL. In this scenario, he’s looking at roughly $20 million annually. San Francisco could backload the extension to later years as a way to even out its financial planning down the road.

San Francisco 49ers Pull Off Blockbuster Trade

This is the least likely scenario. The 49ers seemingly are not in position to take on yet another huge long-term contract. Some fans have been clamoring for Carolina Panthers star edge rusher Brian Burns. In a vacuum, it makes sense. But he’s said to be demanding between $26-28 million annually.

It’s clear that the 49ers are not in position to hand a player of Burns’ ilk that type of deal given their roster construction. Even if they were, there are no signs that Carolina has Burns on the trade block.

If the 49ers do pull off an in-season deal, it will likely come closer to the Oct. 31 NFL trade deadline. It would be similar to when they acquired Christian McCaffrey from the Carolina Panthers last October.

trade for Mike Evans. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Unlike the McCaffrey acquisition, the target would likely be a player on a short-term deal. Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans comes to mind. He is set to play out his final season with Tampa Bay. The record-breaking wide receiver did not come to terms on an extension ahead of Week 1 and has made it clear he’ll be playing for another team next season.

We’ll see other names pop up in NFL trade rumors in the coming weeks as teams realize they are not playoff contenders. With their excess of cap room, the 49ers could very well be big-time players.

It also doesn’t hurt that San Francisco is projected to have 12 picks in the 2024 NFL Draft after the trade of Trey Lance to the Dallas Cowboys. That includes multiple picks in the third round (three), fourth round (two), fifth round (two) and sixth round (two). In short, the 49ers have an ability to add to their Super Bowl-contending roster without exhausting early round selections should the opportunity present itself.

Either way, the 49ers’ decision to clear a ton of cap room ahead of their regular-season opener was done with something in mind. What that might be remains to be seen.

Follow me on Twitter. 

Managing editor at Sportsnaut, an affiliate of the Publisher Desk. Heard on ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio. 

Formerly of Yahoo! Sports, Bleacher Report, Pro Football Focus and Fox Sports.

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The post San Francisco 49ers Have The Most Cap Room In The NFL: What’s Subsequent? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

It’s not deja vu. For the second time in three years, all is going well for the largely unnoticed San Francisco Giants.

They are 13-4 in June before Thursday night’s start and are on a high level with two straight walk-off wins against the star-studded but disappointing San Diego Padres. And it’s not just the Padres they’re outstripping. Since May 15, they’ve changed their season, going from 18-23 to 42-32 and overtaking the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.

They’re still trailing behind the Arizona Diamondbacks, but this Giants team — who lost to Aaron Judge in the offseason and pulled out of a deal with Carlos Correa — is running without national headlines. In doing so, they inevitably commemorate the 2021 team that shocked the baseball world with 107 wins.

In keeping with the Giants’ even-year magic in the 2010s, the Athletics’ Grant Brisbee has helpfully dubbed their burgeoning 2020s pattern “odd-year poppycock.”

To what extent is the team’s rise to the top of the table from 2023 a continuation of 2021? Is the book about this fascinating, seemingly ephemeral team still open? Or is that a whole new story? Let’s break it down.

The Giants’ LaMonte Wade Jr. has been a fixture on the basepath this season. (Benny Sieu/USA TODAY Sports)

Mostly New: The top of the lineup

Most days, the Giants have started 2021 with an unexpected reveal that acts as a neat avatar for the team. LaMonte Wade Jr., who was removed from the lineup Tuesday due to a side issue, rose to fame in this magical campaign two years ago for his uncanny exploits, earning him the nickname “Late Night LaMonte.”

After falling to Earth in 2022 (.207/.305/.359 in 77 injury-paused games), Wade is preparing for a career year with the elite plate skills that undoubtedly caught the Giants’ attention as they turned over the relief pitcher Shaun Anderson joined the Minnesota Twins in February 2021. A 17.3% walk rate and 18% strikeout rate is a recipe for success, and in fact, Wade has the second best on-base percentage in MLB.

So he’s the same person, but not the same hitter. Nothing is the same behind him. Where he opened two years ago to a steady lineup of veterans — Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Darin Ruf, and finally Kris Bryant — Wade has graced more late-blooming contemporaries and newcomers this year.

The Giants’ best all-around position player now is Thairo Estrada, a 27-year-old midfielder who has recovered from injuries sustained in a 2018 shooting in his native Venezuela. Estrada, who rose through the New York Yankees system, had limited playing time in 2021 but established himself as a starter last season. That year he hits .280 with nine home runs and 17 steals. He also plays such a dynamic second base that Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric ranks him among the top 10 most valuable defenders in MLB.

Behind Estrada, the Giants have fielded a combination of early-30s boppers Joc Pederson, Michael Conforto and JD Davis, all of whom have joined in the last two years.

Not exactly new: lots of left-handed power

Pederson and Conforto, along with Wade and Mike Yastrzemski – Monday night’s splashy hero – are at the core of a conspicuous left-hander penchant for the Giants. Given the likelihood of facing a right-handed pitcher, left-heavy lineups can have some advantages.

The 2021 roster hit MLB’s best 116 with 116 left-handed homers against right-handed pitchers, and this team is following a similar path to success. They have 46 left-versus-right home runs and a top 10 offense (by the park-adjusted wRC+ metric) against right-handers.

On the rarer occasions to come up against a southpaw, manager Gabe Kapler is quick to pinch and flip his side to bring in left-hander Wilmer Flores and perhaps promote right-hander Davis, who was a standout upset in a robbery Deals with the New York Mets last summer.

Brand new: Homegrown Talent… from the 2020s

The biggest change you’ll notice using these Giants? The new faces. Two seasons after setting baseball’s oldest lineup at an average age of 30.6, a new breed of homegrown talent with no connection to the 2012 or 2014 World Series is beginning to emerge around lone remnant Brandon Crawford.

24-year-old Patrick Bailey has prevailed as a catcher while Casey Schmitt is finding his time in the infield.

Perhaps most excitingly, 21-year-old outfielder Luis Matos, who is quick and outgoing, joined us last week when new signing Mitch Haniger was out with a long-term arm injury. In six games so far, Matos – who hit .398 in the triple-A – has hit nine runs and hit exactly one strikeout.

Not new: heavy sinkers, sliders and splitters on the rotation

A new star in 2021, Logan Webb has since solidified his stature, signing a five-year, $90 million contract extension beginning in 2024. His park-adjusted ERA this season is 73, which means he was 27% better than the league average. Last season it was 73. In 2021 it was 74.

Alex Cobb stepped in behind him to confidently fill the role of “Kevin Gausman 2021”. Cobb had just hit the IL with a slash, but had pitched a terrific 3.09 ERA that season while using the same potent dose of the same pitch Gausman used: the splitter.

Slider-heavy starter Anthony DeSclafani is also back after a losing season in 2022, delivering solid if unspectacular innings for a team that still has questions to answer at the end of this rotation.

Camilo Doval started Thursday with 19 saves, the second-most among National League scorers. He finished the 2022 season with 27 saves. (Photo by Suzanna Mitchell/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images)

Not new: A dominant bullpen

The 2021 team had the best bullpen in baseball, and the 2023 team is aiming for a similar result. As of May 1, the current bullpen has been untouchable and boasts a 2.39 ERA, which is 44% better than the MLB average over the period, according to the ERA.

That starts with Camilo Doval, the closer with a 1.93 ERA and a near 34% strikeout rate. San Francisco is preparing Doval by getting the best out of not one, but both Rogers twins — submerging right-hander Tyler (1.56 ERA) and more conventional left-hander Taylor (2.88 ERA).

Stumbling blocks and injury problems at new signings Sean Manaea and Ross Stripling have led Kapler to come up with some less-traditional pitching plans, but it’s working. He fielded veteran starter Alex Wood in a recent 15-0 win over the bullpen-needy Dodgers, then turned to 26-year-old rookie Tristan Beck for an extremely rare four-inning save. In a win against the Dodgers the day before, Kapler had fielded opener John Brebbia, then another reliever after him, then white-knuckled through 3 2/3 innings from Manaea and went home a win in 11 innings with eight pitchers total brought, only two of which allowed a run.

That’s how it ended up going for the Giants. And while some of that excellent timing won’t last, we’ve seen enough of this Giants formula to wonder exactly how far they can take it.

The post Odd-year Giants? What’s new and what’s not about San Francisco’s surge [Video] appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Während einige Kalifornier neue Horizonte im Visier haben, tauschen sie weiterhin ihre Sonnenuntergänge im Pazifik gegen Sonnenaufgänge in Texas ein. Ein neuer Bericht untersucht einen spürbaren Migrationstrend der Kalifornier in den Lone Star State – einschließlich der zunehmenden Anziehungskraft Nordtexas.

In einer Zeit voller Berichte und Umfragen kann es schwierig sein, das Signal vom Lärm zu unterscheiden. StorageCafe, eine Schwesterabteilung des Forschungsunternehmens Yardi Matrix, hat seine neuesten Erkenntnisse auf die Beweggründe, Demografie und wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen dessen konzentriert, was es als „Texodus“ bezeichnet.

Laut StorageCafe hat sich die Migration von Kalifornien nach Texas zur führenden zwischenstaatlichen Umsiedlungsroute in den USA entwickelt

Die Route „Texodus“ ist überfüllt

„Texodus wird nicht nur nicht langsamer, sondern die Route wird auch immer überfüllter und nimmt im Jahr 2021 im Vergleich zu den Zahlen von einem Jahrzehnt zuvor um satte 80 % zu“, sagte Yardi gegenüber Dallas Innovates.

Im Jahr 2021 zogen etwa 111.000 Menschen von Kalifornien nach Texas. Um das ins rechte Licht zu rücken: Wenn alle Kalifornier, die in einem Jahr in den Lone Star State ziehen, eine eigene Stadt gründen würden, wäre diese ungefähr so ​​groß wie Richardson, Carrollton oder Frisco in Nordtexas.

Zuwandernde Millennials

Bemerkenswert ist, dass Millennials einen erheblichen Teil der Auswanderer ausmachten und etwa die Hälfte der Migrationen von Kalifornien nach Texas ausmachten.

Der Studie zufolge verfügen diese Millennials über ein überdurchschnittliches jährliches Haushaltseinkommen von 114.000 US-Dollar. Diese Zahl übersteigt das landesweite Durchschnittseinkommen der Millennials um 21 %, das bei 94.000 US-Dollar pro Jahr liegt.

Die migrierenden Millennials haben die Landkreise Dallas, Austin und Houston im Visier. Der Reiz dieser texanischen Reiseziele für migrierende Millennials liegt in den vielversprechenden Beschäftigungsaussichten in Branchen wie Technologie, Finanzen, Bildung und Gesundheitswesen, stellt StorageCafe fest.

Laut der Studie stach Santa Clara nach Dallas County unter den verschiedenen Migrationsrouten als die finanziell vorteilhafteste für Hauskäufer hervor und bot erhebliche Einsparungen bei einem Unterschied von 258 % bei den Listenpreisen (410.000 US-Dollar in Dallas County gegenüber 1.467.000 US-Dollar in Santa Clara). Das ist eine Ersparnis von mehr als 1 Million US-Dollar.

Die Migration sei keine Einbahnstraße, betonen die Forscher. Im Jahr 2021 machten rund 33.000 Texaner Kalifornien zu ihrer Heimat. Aber „Texaner ziehen tendenziell in viel geringerer Zahl nach Kalifornien“, so StorageCafe.

Erhalten Sie mehr für Ihr Immobilienbudget

Die Analyse der Studie basiert laut StorageCafe auf dem IPUMS Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA)-Tool, das integrierte Volkszählungs- und Umfragedaten bereitstellt. Die IPUMS-Daten, die vom Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation an der University of Minnesota gesammelt wurden, bieten eine Grundlage für die Ergebnisse der Studie. Es enthält auch Daten aus Yardi Matrix, Point2 und The Cost of Living Index, veröffentlicht vom Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER).

Doug Ressler, Business Intelligence Manager bei Yardi Matrix, beleuchtet den Migrationstrend nach Texas und weist darauf hin, dass Inflation und finanzielle Belastungen aufgrund steigender Ausgaben die Migrationsmuster bestimmen. Viele Menschen sind auf der Suche nach erschwinglicherem Wohnraum und überqueren auf der Suche nach geeigneten Optionen Stadt- und Staatsgrenzen.

„Migrationsmuster hängen eng mit der Dynamik der Wirtschaft in der Welt nach der Pandemie zusammen“, sagte er in einer Erklärung. Da die Inflation den Menschen weiterhin Sorgen bereitet, „scheint der Umzug an Orte, die den Geldbeutel schonen, die offensichtliche Lösung zu sein, da viele Menschen Stadt- und Staatsgrenzen überschreiten, um einen geeigneteren Wohnort zu finden.“

„Kalifornien ist mittlerweile ein regelmäßiger Exporteur von Menschen, insbesondere nach Texas.“

Professor Rogelio Saenz von der University of Texas in San Antonio hob ebenfalls den zunehmenden Trend hervor, dass Kalifornier nach Texas ziehen. „Kalifornien ist jetzt ein regelmäßiger Exporteur von Menschen, insbesondere nach Texas“, sagte er und wies darauf hin, dass die zunehmende Möglichkeit der Fernarbeit während der Pandemie dazu geführt hat, dass viele Menschen, insbesondere aus Städten mit hohen Kosten wie Los Angeles und San Francisco, mehr suchen bezahlbare Lebensbedingungen in Texas.

Laut Saenz hat Texas im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts mehr zwischenstaatliche Migranten aus Kalifornien aufgenommen als jeder andere Staat. Der Professor zitierte Daten der American Community Survey, die auf einen Anstieg der Zahl der Kalifornier, die zwischen 2016 und 2021 nach Texas ziehen, um 36 % schließen lassen, und nannte hohe Immobilienpreise und hohe Lebenshaltungskosten in Kalifornien als Hauptgründe für diesen Trend.

Laut Saenz sind Menschen, die von Kalifornien nach Texas ziehen, typischerweise jung, mit einem Durchschnittsalter von 29 Jahren, und oft gut ausgebildet. Die demografische Aufteilung lässt darauf schließen, dass es sich bei diesen Migranten überwiegend um Weiße und Asiaten handelt, obwohl auch lateinamerikanische und schwarze Kalifornier einen erheblichen Anteil ausmachen.

Top-Bericht zum Mitnehmen

Ressler von Yardi stellte fest, dass Dallas County mit rund 45.000 Zuzügen zu den drei Landkreisen in Texas gehörte, die im Jahr 2021 die höchste Zahl an Neuankömmlingen verzeichneten. Harris County lag mit rund 69.000 Neuankömmlingen an der Spitze, gefolgt von Bexar County mit 48.000.

Er sagte, die meisten Neuankömmlinge in allen drei Landkreisen kämen aus Kalifornien.

In Bezug auf den Prozentsatz des Bevölkerungswachstums gehörte Kaufman County im Norden von Texas (7,5 %) neben Garza County (7,8 %) und Comal County (6,9 %) zu den drei führenden Countys, sagte Ressler.

Vorläufige Daten aus den Schätzungen des US Census Bureau für 2022 zählten neben den Landkreisen Rockwall und Parker auch Kaufman zu den Landkreisen mit den größten Bevölkerungszuwächsen im Vergleich zu 2021.

Die zusammenfassende Analyse der Landkreise im Norden von Texas zeigt:

• Im Jahr 2021 zogen rund 25.000 Kalifornier in die Landkreise Dallas, Tarrant, Collin und Denton im Norden von Texas. Damit zählen alle diese Landkreise im Norden von Texas zu den 15 beliebtesten Reisezielen für Kalifornier im Bundesstaat. Los Angeles County war der „Hauptlieferant“ neuer Einwohner, gefolgt von den Countys Orange und San Diego.
• Ein Hauptgrund für den Umzug ist, dass Wohnraum in Nordtexas 80 % günstiger ist als in Los Angeles. Dies führt zu einer Preislücke von etwa 392.000 US-Dollar.
• Die Miete in Texas ist im Allgemeinen über 50 % günstiger als in Kalifornien, außer für diejenigen, die von LA nach Collin County ziehen.
• Der Umzug von Los Angeles nach Collin County bietet den meisten zusätzlichen Platz: über 1.000 Quadratfuß mehr für Hausbesitzer und 124 Quadratfuß mehr für Mieter.
• Häuser in Texas sind normalerweise 17 % größer als die in Kalifornien. Die Wohnungen sind etwa 6 % größer.

Zwei Umzugsrouten von Kalifornien nach Texas können zu Einsparungen von über 1 Million US-Dollar führen

Der Kauf eines Hauses in Dallas statt in San Jose kann bei einer Transplantation durchschnittlich mehr als 1 Million US-Dollar einsparen. Dies liegt daran, dass Häuser in Dallas 258 % günstiger sind als die in Santa Clara, heißt es in der Studie.

Der nächste signifikante Preisunterschied besteht zwischen den Landkreisen San Mateo und Travis mit einem Unterschied von 243 %. Laut StorageCafe könnten Eigenheimkäufer dadurch durchschnittlich fast 1,3 Millionen US-Dollar einsparen.

Aber wie Professor Saenz betont, hat der Zustrom von Kaliforniern unbeabsichtigt zu steigenden Immobilienpreisen in Texas beigetragen.

Während Wohnraum in Texas nach wie vor deutlich erschwinglicher ist als in Kalifornien, verzeichnete der Staat zwischen 2016 und 2021 einen Anstieg des durchschnittlichen Eigenheimwerts um 30 %, wobei kalifornische Transplantierte in Häusern mit höherem Wert leben als einheimische Texaner und Migranten aus anderen Bundesstaaten.

Potenzielle Einsparungen für Mieter von mehr als 1.000 US-Dollar pro Monat

Laut der Studie ist es für Mieter möglich, in den Top-25-Reisezielen von Texas bezahlbar zu leben. Mieter müssen nicht mehr als 25 % für die Miete ausgeben, außer diejenigen, die von San Diego nach Dallas ziehen.

Insgesamt zeigen die Daten, dass die Miete in Texas im Vergleich zu Kalifornien günstiger ist, basierend auf Daten zur Durchschnittsmiete. Wenn Sie beispielsweise von Santa Clara nach Dallas County ziehen, könnten Sie 1.472 US-Dollar einsparen, während die Miete von 3.034 US-Dollar auf 1.562 US-Dollar sinkt. Ebenso kann ein Umzug von San Diego nach Tarrant Country 1.238 US-Dollar einsparen, da die Miete von 2.683 US-Dollar auf 1.445 US-Dollar sinkt.

Der Umzug von Los Angeles County nach El Paso County könnte mit einer Mietdifferenz von 154 % und einer Ersparnis von etwa 1.580 US-Dollar pro Monat die höchsten Einsparungen bringen. Die nächsten großen Einsparungen ergeben sich aus dem Umzug von San Diego nach San Antonio, wo Mieter aufgrund einer Mietdifferenz von 110 % rund 1.470 US-Dollar pro Monat sparen können.

Auf 18 der in der Studie hervorgehobenen Umzugsrouten können Menschen in Texas im Vergleich zu ihrem kalifornischen Herkunftsbezirk über 1.000 US-Dollar pro Monat sparen.

Was die Größe betrifft, Ein Umzug von Orange County (mit einer durchschnittlichen Wohnungsgröße von fast 870 Quadratfuß) in die Countys Travis oder Dallas in Texas kann der Studie zufolge zu etwas weniger Wohnraum für Mieter führen. Wohnungen in den beiden texanischen Landkreisen bieten im Durchschnitt etwa 860 Quadratmeter Fläche.

Hausbesitzer haben in Texas große Erfolge

Wie bereits erwähnt, sind Häuser in Texas 17 % größer als die in Kalifornien, während Wohnungen in Texas etwa 6 % größer sind.

Ein Umzug von Los Angeles in die Countys Collin oder Denton in Texas kann für Menschen, die mehr Platz suchen, erhebliche Vorteile bringen. Der Studie zufolge könnte ein Umzug von Los Angeles nach Collin County den größten Wohnraumgewinn bringen. Dort gewinnen Hausbesitzer zusätzliche 1.055 Quadratfuß, während Mieter zusätzliche 124 Quadratfuß erhalten.

Ein Umzug von Los Angeles nach Denton County könnte zu einer Vergrößerung der durchschnittlichen Wohngröße um 935 Quadratfuß führen.

Es überrascht nicht, dass die StorageCafe-Studie auch auf eine weitere Auswirkung des Migrationstrends in DFW hinweist: einen boomenden Self-Storage-Markt. Deutlich besser schneidet Texas im Self-Storage-Bereich ab, mit über 10,3 Quadratmetern Lagerfläche pro Person, stellt das Unternehmen fest. Kalifornien hingegen hinkt mit 6,3 Quadratfuß Lagerfläche pro Kopf hinterher. Diese beträchtliche Lagerkapazität unterstreicht die Reaktion auf die wachsende Nachfrage von Einzelpersonen und Familien, die nach Texas ziehen – und entspricht den Bedürfnissen von Neuankömmlingen.

Wird sich der Umzugstrend fortsetzen?

Professor Saenz geht davon aus, dass dieser Migrationstrend aufgrund der anhaltenden Ungleichheit bei den Immobilienpreisen und Lebenshaltungskosten zwischen Kalifornien und Texas wahrscheinlich anhalten wird.

„In den ersten zwei Jahrzehnten des 21. Jahrhunderts war die Bewegung der Menschen, die Kalifornien nach Texas verließen, gut etabliert“, sagte er. „Kein anderer Staat hat in dieser Zeit mehr Migranten nach Texas geschickt als Kalifornien. Die kontinuierlich steigenden Immobilienpreise und Lebenshaltungskosten in Kalifornien sowie die viel höhere Erschwinglichkeit in Texas werden in den kommenden Jahrzehnten wahrscheinlich den erheblichen Zustrom von Kaliforniern nach Texas aufrechterhalten.“

Die vollständige Studie von StorageCafe finden Sie hier:

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  Im Fannin County östlich von Sherman und Denison soll im nächsten Frühjahr der erste neue große Stausee in Texas seit fast 30 Jahren ans Netz gehen. Der fast 17.000 Hektar große Bois d’Arc Lake wird eine Quelle dringend benötigten Wassers für den North Texas Municipal Water District sein, der Frisco, McKinney, Plano, Richardson und andere Gebiete im schnell wachsenden Nordosten von Dallas County versorgt. „Aber in der Nähe des Sees ist etwas ebenso Kostbares entstanden: ein neuer Wald mit mehr als 6 Millionen Bäumen, der in den letzten vier Jahren als natürlicher Lebensraum angelegt wurde, um das zu ersetzen, was der See verschlingt.

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  Es stehen bald Fristen für ein neues Accelerator-Programm an; und viele weitere Möglichkeiten.

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  Möchten Sie Ihren Weg von der Innovation bis zur Markteinführung planen oder Bundesmittel über das 4-Milliarden-Dollar-Programm „America’s Seed Fund“ beantragen? Oder vielleicht sind Sie ein Unternehmer, der die Bedürfnisse Ihrer Kunden bestätigen möchte. Das Texas SBDC Technology Commercialization Center möchte helfen.

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Cars drive by the Westfield San Francisco Centre on April 13, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf |CNN

Another big American retailer announced it was pulling out of downtown San Francisco.

Nordstrom blamed flagging foot traffic and the “dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market” when it announced it would not renew the lease on its massive retail location as well as its discount outlet in the heart of the city.

Numerous other brands have also said they will pull out of the area. In April, Whole Foods temporarily shut a flagship store that opened just last year, citing worker safety.

What’s happening in San Francisco has become a key storyline in a larger national narrative about crime and perceptions of crime.

It’s a storyline that CNN reporter Kyung Lah experienced back in March when she and a crew went to San Francisco to report on how crime has scrambled the city’s politics. Last November, voters in the majority-Asian American Sunset District replaced a progressive Chinese American incumbent for supervisor with a moderate White man, Joel Engardio.

“San Francisco, the most liberal place in America, is saying enough. We want safe streets. We want good schools,” Engardio told Lah during an interview at City Hall. “That should tell anyone — pay attention.”

Proving the point, the window of the car rented by Lah and her crew was being smashed and their bags grabbed as she conducted that interview. It happened in about four seconds, Lah said, and despite the fact that the CNN crew had hired professional security to watch their car. Watch her report.

Lah told me officers from the San Francisco Police Department ultimately recovered her emptied bags and passport.

For a better sense of what exactly is going on in one of the world’s great cities, I talked to Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist for Mission Local, an independent, nonprofit news site. Full disclosure: Joe and I went to college together in the Bay Area and were colleagues at The Daily Californian. Excerpts of our conversation are below.

What’s happening in San Francisco?

WOLF: I’m out here on the East Coast. I see that businesses like Nordstrom and Whole Foods are leaving downtown San Francisco, and there is this theme that crime is driving them away. What’s your view?

ESKENAZI: There is crime in downtown San Francisco, but there always has been.

I think the notion that these businesses were driven out by crime is frankly dishonest. That’s always been a factor. But it wasn’t like Mid-Market (where the Nordstrom is located) was a serene place before the pandemic.

I think the Nordstrom people were very responsible in what they said. The letter that was sent to everybody was very upfront that there was decreased foot traffic. They weren’t making money.

It wasn’t good business for them anymore. And Nordstrom, in fact, closed their Stonestown Mall outlet in 2019, which is a mall more in the periphery of San Francisco.

So the problem here is that your big, high-end, mall-type retail is dying. It was already having lots of trouble before the pandemic and that kind of greased the skids. That’s a big problem for downtown San Francisco. It’s hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space that’s suddenly going to go vacant.

To say it was chased out by crime is a preferred narrative of people for their own worldview.

I just looked back and found an article that I wrote in 2014 about complaints that one out of every four police calls in that district was in or near the Westfield Mall. That was there before.

Is the inside of the city being hollowed out?

WOLF: There’s a tendency, if you’re looking from outside of San Francisco in, to try to connect dots between different stories. There’s the murder of a tech executive, the election of a more moderate city council, the recall of the district attorney there. There are reports about skyscrapers that are essentially vacant right now. There’s this perception that the inside of the city is being hollowed out.

ESKENAZI: That’s true, but that doesn’t have anything to do with crime. That has to do with the fact that the entire inside of the city was devoted to office space for businesses that are now going remote and cutting down.

People have different opinions on this, but I feel like it’s kind of asking a lot for the city to have 2020 hindsight. You can see where the city made itself vulnerable, devoting so much space to office space exclusively.

And in this case, tech companies were so flush that they alone could afford to buy up that office space, and in fact bought it up when it was still even conceptual office space. So like 100% of the vacancies were going to tech.

When tech workers dictated that they would rather be working from home or working a combination, that’s what happened. If you go to the Financial District now — it’s not nearly as bad as everyone would think. There are still people around. It’s just not crowded. And it hollows out very quickly once working hours are done.

But that’s always how it was. I think office vacancies speak for themselves.

We’re going to see how bad it really is when rents come down. A lot of the people who own those buildings are extremely leveraged and can’t afford to lower rents. So rents are still higher than in other cities nearby and in competing cities.

You’re not going to get new people with those rates. Sooner or later people are going to have to bite the bullet and decide they want the building to be largely full at a lower rate or largely empty at a higher rate.

And then we’re going to see if other types of businesses move in — the types of businesses San Francisco economically banished a long time ago.

People feel uneasy, but it is far from ‘Mad Max’

WOLF: A separate issue than crime, but potentially related, is homelessness. We’ve written more about that, certainly, with regard to Los Angeles, but I wonder what it’s like from a perspective of running into a large number of people who are unhoused on the streets. Is that changing the perceptions in the city?

ESKENAZI: There have always been large numbers of unhoused people in San Francisco. The difference now is that with fewer people downtown, a higher percentage of people you see are visibly homeless.

What’s more, there are more overtly miserable people out than there used to be, for lack of a better word. You’re seeing more chaotic, horrific conditions.

You earlier mentioned crime, and in people’s minds, being uneasy about drug use in the streets or antisocial behavior is equated in their minds with crime. People feel uneasy, and that’s understandable.

But this feeling of uneasiness does not square with crime. If you take a step back, statistically, that’s the case. San Francisco has lots of overt misery, lots of overt drug use, lots of things that you wish you didn’t see and that the city should be dealing with in ways other than tossing people in jail or pushing them into neighboring counties.

San Francisco also has lots of property crime because there’s a great divergence of wealth and people steal things. But San Francisco’s violent crime rate is at a near historic low right now.

This dynamic was on full display when it was just assumed that tech mogul Bob Lee was stabbed to death by a homeless crazy, and it turns out that the man in custody is a fellow tech executive.

We have a big problem with the future of downtown and how it’s going to be productive and provide the tax revenue that this city depends upon. The departures of our big anchor businesses because it’s no longer profitable — that’s a big problem. It is separate and apart from the perception that it’s “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” here on the city streets, which just really isn’t true.

A perception of uneasiness can have consequences

WOLF: Perception can lead to change, though, even if it isn’t specifically reality. How is the perception of the city as Thunderdome going to affect the politics there? People’s willingness to live there? If you describe a sense of uneasiness, even though that might not mean more crime, it sounds like a not-pleasant place to be.

ESKENAZI: I think it’s definitely going to have its effect on how things are done in San Francisco, but we’re going to have to see what that looks like.

I’d say that half-formed “solutions” meant to address something that isn’t statistically a problem are not going to have happy outcomes. You know, calling in the Highway Patrol and the National Guard to deal with our horrible drug addiction problem isn’t going to do much if it’s all for show, even if they get out on the streets and start collaring drug users and tossing them in jail.

We’re currently arresting narcotics criminals at about one-ninth of volume that district attorney (now Vice President) Kamala Harris presided over during prior police administrations. The tough parts of downtown were still tough back then. There was still a lot of overt drug use and misery.

The drugs are different now. The drugs are more dangerous now. But it would be very hard to just patrol and arrest your way out of this problem. It’s going to take more thorough, complete solutions.

I’m not really even seeing the willingness to have honest discussions about this, because the whole premise is being taken and grabbed and run with in a dishonest way.

WOLF: What am I missing?

ESKENAZI: I think that people are scared and people are uneasy and people are fed up.

But that’s different than saying OK, we’re just gonna hire more cops or OK, we’re going to just do something simple. These are complicated problems. And San Francisco can’t solve some of America’s problems.

One of the reasons in San Francisco you see people shooting drugs on the street is because in other parts of the country, those people can afford to be inside.

San Francisco has land-use issues and housing issues. Land use is a bit like sand; it gets into everything here. Every discussion ends up coming back to that, which is very unsatisfactory and makes it very hard to solve problems.

A (former New York City Mayor Rudy) Giuliani type situation of just like booting misery and overt antisocial behavior into the next county isn’t going to end up working here, because it would seem that other people have that idea elsewhere and they encourage people to come here.

What’s your view of San Francisco politicians’ prospects in DC?

WOLF: Let me flip the conversation around a little bit. You mentioned Vice President Harris. The current governor of California, Gavin Newsom, used to be the mayor of San Francisco. The city has an outsize influence in state and national politics. What is your view of how those two people’s careers will progress?

ESKENAZI: I think Kamala Harris will rise or fall based upon factors other than her performance as district attorney in San Francisco quite some time ago.

I think that it’s very hard to see some of Gavin Newsom’s moves here in California as other than politically based. Gavin Newsom does not seem to want to give fodder to (Florida Gov.) Ron DeSantis and, as a result, something that we know would work here in California, which is having supervised drug use centers — which have worked elsewhere in the country and worked elsewhere in the world — he vetoed that bill.

So we’re left with doing the same thing we’ve always done with regard to drug users and drug addicted people, which is not much — and the death toll is staggering.

I have a hard time seeing that as anything other than a politically based move. And he didn’t give Ron DeSantis something to tease him about, and people are dead on the streets. It’s very frustrating for those of us who live here.

What’s the direction of your city?

WOLF: You’ve lived there pretty much your entire life. Has the city gotten better or worse in the last 40 some odd years?

ESKENAZI: It’s different. Some things are better, and some things are worse. People who tell you differently are seeing things through blinders, frankly. Full disclosure: You and I went to college together, and I grew up in the area. After Berkeley, I ended up moving full time to San Francisco 20 some odd years ago.

When I moved to San Francisco, Zach, there were well over 100 murders a year.

We’ve had as few as 41 murders, I think, two years ago (note: it was 2019). We’re on pace to have about 56, 55. So it’s very different. Violent crime is much lower now than it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

But property crime is off the hook. And overt misery is off the hook. And the budget of San Francisco has ballooned. So people are frustrated.

But simply saying things are worse or things are better strikes me as being reductive. Things are certainly more expensive.

The-CNN-Wire
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